Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial insight, gathered from around the web:
IVF prices spur confusion
The out-of-pocket costs for assisted reproductive technology can add up, said Julia Rothman and Shaina Feinberg at The New York Times. Speaking with five families about what they paid to have a child, costs varied widely for every part of the process. One couple at the low end paid $10,000 for the IVF procedure and $3,000 for medicine. Another couple, who did it several times, spent $3,800 on an initial consultation, $7,100 on medicine, and $10,500 on the medical procedure. In many cases, IVF takes several tries, and couples can spend many thousands without a successful outcome. One woman who succeeded in getting pregnant in seven months found out only after she had twins that the cost of the procedure would be a stunning $36,000. "The whole time I was thinking that my insurance was covering it," she says, "because the clinic had looked it up and said, 'You're good to go.'"
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Vanguard's private equity push
Low-cost money-manager Vanguard is launching a private equity fund, said Dawn Lim at The Wall Street Journal. Private equity funds charge investors an annual fee as high as 2 percent of assets and a 20 percent share of profits, so the move is striking for a firm that "built a brand on the back of low-cost funds for everyday investors." In recent years, however, Vanguard has attracted $1.6 trillion in money from endowments, foundations, and other institutions. Initially, Vanguard's private equity offerings will be open only to these institutions, but Vanguard "sees an opening" for the strategy to include the investments in individual portfolios.
The car-buying concierge
Some car dealers are bravely getting rid of a central part of the car-buying process, said Phoebe Wall Howard at the Detroit Free Press: the dealership. Brian Carroll was fired unexpectedly from his sales position at a dealership in Macomb, Michigan. "Then a guy called wanting a car." When "the buyer said he didn't care" that Carroll no longer worked at a dealership, Carroll decided he would go solo as an independent "car concierge," working with clients to find exactly the car they want. He taps a network of dealers to "find the best price and offer options," then drives the new car to wherever clients need it, asking only to be paid a commission on the sale. Carroll says that he's now selling 30 to 35 cars a month, doing better than he did at his old job.
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